brock911fandomcom-20200216-history
September 11 6am-7am
Timeline 6:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: Condoleezza Rice at White House Instead of in Florida with President Bush National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice arrives at her office at the White House. 2007, PP. XI Rice will later recall that today is intended to be “a normal day, foreign visitors, several meetings.” 9/11/2002 Usually she or her deputy, Stephen Hadley, goes along on presidential trips to handle any national security questions that might come up, so one of them would have gone with President Bush the previous day for his two-day trip to Florida (see September 10, 2001). MORNING NEWS, 9/9/2001; BUMILLER, 2007, PP. XI But, as Rice will later recall, Bush’s trip is “such a short trip that we decided not to do that.” 9/11/2002 In their place, they have sent Navy Captain Deborah Loewer, the director of the White House Situation Room. 2007, PP. XI (6:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Two Hijackers Fly to Boston Airport Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari’s flight from Portland to Boston takes off. BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, 10/4/2001 Their plane, Colgan Air Flight 5930, is a 19-seat . BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, 2001; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 3 Fellow passengers Vincent Meisner and Roger Quirion will later say Atta and Alomari board separately, keep quiet, and do not draw attention to themselves. SUN-TIMES, 9/16/2001; WASHINGTON POST, 9/16/2001 Quirion, says: “They struck me as business travelers. They were sitting down, talking, seems like they were going over some paperwork.” NEWS, 10/12/2001 (6:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Two Hours Before Attacks, Israeli Company Employees Receive Warnings Two employees of Odigo, Inc., an Israeli company, receive warnings of an imminent attack in New York City about two hours before the first plane hits the WTC. Odigo, one of the world’s largest instant messaging companies, has its headquarters two blocks from the WTC. The Odigo Research and Development offices where the warnings were received are located in Herzliyya, a suburb of Tel Aviv. Israeli security and the FBI were notified immediately after the 9/11 attacks began. The two employees claim not to know who sent the warnings. “Odigo service includes a feature called People Finder that allows users to seek out and contact others based on certain interests or demographics. Alex Diamandis vice president of sales and marketing said it was possible that the attack warning was broadcast to other Odigo members, but the company has not received reports of other recipients of the message.” 9/26/2001; WASHINGTON POST, 9/27/2001 Odigo claims the warning did not specifically mention the WTC, but the company refuses to divulge what was specified, claiming, “Providing more details would only lead to more conjecture.” POST, 9/28/2001 However, a later newspaper report claims that the message declared “that some sort of attack was about to take place. The notes ended with an anti-Semitic slur. ‘The messages said something big was going to happen in a certain amount of time, and it did—almost to the minute,’ said Alex Diamandis, vice president of sales for the high-tech company… He said the employees did not know the person who sent the message, but they traced it to a computer address and have given that information to the FBI.” POST, 10/4/2001 Odigo gave the FBI the Internet address of the message’s sender so the name of the sender could be found. PRESSE-AGENTUR (HAMBURG), 9/26/2001 Two months later, it is reported that the FBI is still investigating the matter, but there have been no reports since. MAIL, 11/20/2001 (6:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Bush Interview or Assassination Attempt? President Bush has just spent the night at the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, Florida. HERALD-TRIBUNE, 9/10/2002 He wakes up around 6:00 a.m. and is preparing for his morning jog. YORK TIMES, 9/16/2001; DAILY TELEGRAPH, 12/16/2001; MSNBC, 10/27/2002 A van occupied by men of Middle Eastern descent arrives at the Colony Beach Resort, stating they have a “poolside” interview with the president. They do not have an appointment and are turned away. OBSERVER, 9/26/2001 Some question whether this was an assassination attempt modeled on the one used on Afghan leader Ahmed Massoud two days earlier (see September 9, 2001). 8/4/2002 Longboat Key Fire Marshal Carroll Mooneyhan was reported to have overheard the conversation between the men and the Secret Service, but he later denies the report. The newspaper that reported this, the Longboat Observer stands by its story. PETERSBURG TIMES, 7/4/2004 Witnesses recall seeing Mohamed Atta in the Longboat Key Holiday Inn a short distance from where Bush was staying as recently as September 7, the day Bush’s Sarasota appearance was publicly announced. OBSERVER, 11/21/2001; ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 7/4/2004 (6:20 a.m.-7:48 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Hijackers Arrive at Airports and Board Flights; Computer Screening Program Fails to Stop Them All the alleged 9/11 hijackers reportedly check in at the airports from where they board Flights 11, 175, 77, and 93. COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 1-4; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 27, 89, 93 Since 1998, the FAA has required air carriers to implement a program called the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS). This identifies those passengers who might be a security risk, based upon suspicious behavior such as buying one-way tickets or paying with cash. CAPPS also randomly assigns some passengers to receive additional security scrutiny. If a particular passenger has been designated as a “selectee,” this information is transmitted to the airport’s check-in counter, where a code is printed on their boarding pass. At the airport’s security checkpoints, selectees are subjected to additional security measures. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, 4/1/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 1/27/2004; US CONGRESS, 3/17/2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 2, 85 Their baggage is to be screened for explosives or held off the plane until they have boarded. Supposedly, the thinking behind this is that someone smuggling a bomb onto a plane won’t get onto that same flight. According to the 9/11 Commission, nine of the 19 hijackers are flagged by the CAPPS system before boarding Flights 11, 175, 77, and 93. POST, 1/28/2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 84; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA V. ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, A/K/A SHAQIL, A/K/A ABU KHALID AL SAHRAWI, DEFENDANT, 3/6/2006 In addition, Mohamed Atta was selected when he checked in at the airport in Portland, for his earlier connecting flight to Boston (see 5:33 a.m.-5:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). All of the hijackers subsequently pass through security checkpoints before boarding their flights. COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 1-4 (6:20 a.m.-6:53 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Two Flight 175 Hijackers Check in at United Airlines Ticket Counter; Uncertainty Over Their Identities Two of the Flight 175 hijackers approach a customer service representative at the United Airlines ticket counter at Boston’s Logan Airport. The two appear unaccustomed to traveling. One tells the representative, Gail Jawahir, that he needs a ticket, though upon examining his documents she finds he already has one. Both men have problems answering standard security questions, which Jawahir has to repeat very slowly until they give the routine, reassuring answers. There is conflicting evidence over their identities. Jawahir will place her encounter with the men at “shortly before 7 a.m.” Shown photos of the alleged hijackers after 9/11, she will indicate that one of the two she encountered resembled Mohand Alshehri, suggesting the two were Alshehri and Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, who checked in at 6:53 a.m. Yet she recalls the two having the same last name and having assigned seats on Row 9 of the plane, suggesting they were Ahmed and Hamza Alghamdi, who checked in at 6:20 a.m. COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 2, 451; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 17-18, 89 (6:20 a.m.-7:27 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Flight 175 Hijackers Check In at Airport and Board Plane; None Selected for Additional Security Scrutiny All five Flight 175 hijackers reportedly check in at Boston’s Logan Airport, pass through a security checkpoint, and board their plane during this period. COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 89 The FAA has a program in place called CAPPS, which selects passengers for more thorough security screening based on suspicious behavior such as buying a one-way ticket or paying with cash (see (6:20 a.m.-7:48 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Although reports claim that between two and five of the Flight 175 hijackers have one-way tickets, none are selected by CAPPS. 4/24/2002; US CONGRESS, 9/26/2002; US CONGRESS, 9/26/2002; WASHINGTON POST, 1/28/2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 18 Two of them have problems answering security questions at the ticket counter (see (6:20 a.m.-6:53 a.m.) September 11, 2001). At the security checkpoint, all five would pass through a walk-through metal detector, and an X-ray machine would screen their carry-on luggage. But Logan Airport has no video surveillance of its checkpoints (see 1991-2000), so there is no documentary evidence of exactly when they go through, or how they are processed. Jennifer Gore, the young supervisor overseeing the checkpoint, is later unable to recall seeing any of them. The Globe and Mail will explain, “She was trained to look for metal bits in bags and in clothes, not people.” AND MAIL, 9/7/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 2; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 18 (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001: NORAD on Alert for Emergency Exercises Lieutenant Colonel Dawne Deskins and other day shift employees at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, NY, start their workday. NORAD is conducting a week-long, large-scale exercise called Vigilant Guardian. NEWS SERVICE, 1/25/2002 Deskins is regional mission crew chief for the Vigilant Guardian exercise. NEWS, 9/11/2002 Exercise Includes Simulated Attack on the US - Vigilant Guardian is described as “an exercise that would pose an imaginary crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide”; as a “simulated air war”; and as “an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States.” According to the 9/11 Commission, it “postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union.” NEWS SERVICE, 1/25/2002; FILSON, 2003, PP. 55 AND 122; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 458 Vigilant Guardian is described as being held annually, and is one of NORAD’s four major annual exercises. (.ORG), 4/14/2002; FILSON, 2003, PP. 41; ARKIN, 2005, PP. 545 However, one report says it takes place semi-annually. WEEK AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY, 6/3/2002 Accounts by participants vary on whether 9/11 is the second, third, or fourth day of the exercise. ONE MAGAZINE, 1/2002; NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE, 1/25/2002; OTTAWA CITIZEN, 9/11/2002 Vigilant Guardian is a command post exercise (CPX), and in at least some previous years was conducted in conjunction with Stratcom’s Global Guardian exercise and a US Space Command exercise called Apollo Guardian. CONGRESS, N.D.; GLOBALSECURITY (.ORG), 4/14/2002; ARKIN, 2005, PP. 545 All of NORAD is participating in Vigilant Guardian on 9/11. WEEK AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY, 6/3/2002 Exercise Includes Simulated Hijacking - Vanity Fair reports that the “day’s exercise” (presumably Vigilant Guardian) is “designed to run a range of scenarios, including a ‘traditional’ simulated hijack in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and seek asylum.” FAIR, 8/1/2006 However, at NEADS, most of the dozen or so staff on the operations floor have no idea what the exercise is going to entail and are ready for anything. OBSERVER-DISPATCH, 8/5/2004 NORAD Fully Staffed and Alert - NORAD is currently running a real-world operation named Operation Northern Vigilance (see September 9-11, 2001). It may also be conducting a field training exercise calling Amalgam Warrior on this morning (see 9:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). NORAD is thus fully staffed and alert, and senior officers are manning stations throughout the US. The entire chain of command will be in place and ready when the first hijacking is reported. An article later says, “In retrospect, the exercise would prove to be a serendipitous enabler of a rapid military response to terrorist attacks on September 11.” WEEK AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY, 6/3/2002; BERGEN RECORD, 12/5/2003 Colonel Robert Marr, in charge of NEADS, will say: “We had the fighters with a little more gas on board. A few more weapons on board.” NEWS, 9/11/2002 However, Deskins and other NORAD officials later are initially confused about whether the 9/11 attacks are real or part of the exercise (see (8:38 a.m.-8:43 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Entity Tags: Northeast Air Defense Sector, Dawne Deskins, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Operation Northern Vigilance, Vigilant Guardian, Robert Marr Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Key Day of 9/11 Events, All Day of 9/11 Events, Training Exercises Early Morning September 11, 2001: Medic Is Studying Medical Emergency Disaster Plan for Plane Crash at Pentagon Sergeant Matt Rosenberg, an army medic at the Pentagon, is studying “a new medical emergency disaster plan based on the unlikely scenario of an airplane crashing into the place.” POST, 9/16/2001 The day before, Rosenberg later recalls in an interview with the Office of Medical History, he called the FBI with questions about who would have medical jurisdiction if such an event were to take place. “Believe it or not, the day prior to the incident, I was just on the phone with the FBI, and we were talking ‘so who has command should this happen, who has the medical jurisdiction, who does this, who does that,’ and we talked about it and talked about it, and he helped me out a lot. And then the next day, during the incident, I actually found him. He was out there on the incident that day.” OF MEDICAL HISTORY, 9/2004, PP. 9 Entity Tags: Pentagon, Matt Rosenberg, Federal Bureau of Investigation Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events (6:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001: Radar Located in Northeast US Offline for Repair Work The Joint Surveillance System (JSS). Dr. Steven R. Bussolari, MIT Lincoln Laboratory Military radar in Massachusetts, which is used by NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), is out of use this morning in order to undergo maintenance work. COMMISSION, 10/27/2003 ; 9/11 COMMISSION, 10/27/2003 Radar Scheduled to Go Down - The J53 radar in North Truro, Massachusetts, is one of a number of radar sites that NEADS receives data from. STATES SPACE COMMAND, 12/30/1995; JANE'S C4I SYSTEMS, 9/1/2005; NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, 10/23/2006 It has a range of 250 miles. According to Technical Sergeant Jeffrey Richmond, the assistant air surveillance technician at NEADS, J53 is scheduled to go down this morning for some major repairs to be carried out. COMMISSION, 10/27/2003 ; 9/11 COMMISSION, 10/27/2003 NEADS Personnel Refer to Radar - A member of staff at NEADS apparently refers to the J53 radar being offline shortly after those on the NEADS operations floor learn of the Flight 11 hijacking (see (8:38 a.m.) September 11, 2001) and while they are trying to locate the hijacked aircraft. She mentions that NEADS technicians “still should be able to get it” (presumably referring to the plane’s radar track) “without 53.” AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, 9/11/2001 (According to Richmond, the area covered by J53 is overlapped by other radars, “so the need for radar to undergo routine maintenance is accounted for.”) ID technician Shelley Watson will later recall that the NEADS ID desk uses the J53 radar as a point from which it attempts to locate Flight 11. At some time during the morning, Richmond insists that J53 be put back online at some capacity. Whether this happens is unstated. COMMISSION, 10/27/2003 ; 9/11 COMMISSION, 10/27/2003 Radar Part of 'Joint Surveillance System' - The J53 radar site is part of the Joint Surveillance System (JSS). SAFETY BOARD OF CANADA, 9/2/1998; US DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE, 11/1/1999 ; 9/11 COMMISSION, 2004 The JSS consists of “long-range radar sites around the perimeter of the US, with data shared by the of Defense, FAA, Customs, and others.” A 2003 Department of Defense report will state that, at the time of the 9/11 attacks, US air defense relies “largely on outward looking ground-based radars, specifically, the Joint Surveillance System.” DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 7/2003 According to General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD, NORAD has access to the JSS, “which is that system that rings the United States and looks out.” He will say this system “looks for that foreign threat. It looks for someone coming into our airspace that’s not authorized.” CONGRESS. SENATE. ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, 10/25/2001 Entity Tags: Joint Surveillance System, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Jeffrey Richmond, Ralph Eberhart, Shelley Watson Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events (6:31 a.m.) September 11, 2001: President Bush Goes Jogging The Colony Beach and Tennis Resort, where Bush stays the night before 9/11. Colony Beach and Tennis Resort President Bush goes for a four-mile jog around the golf course at the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort. POST, 1/27/2002; WASHINGTON TIMES, 10/7/2002; MSNBC, 10/27/2002 Entity Tags: George W. Bush Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, George Bush 6:45 a.m. September 11, 2001: Hijacker’s Connecting Flight Arrives in Boston Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari’s Portland-Boston flight arrives on time at Boston’s Logan Airport. SPIEGEL, 2002 They cross a parking lot on their way to the departure terminal for Flight 11, and are observed asking for directions. The other three Flight 11 hijackers arrive at Logan in a rented car around this same time (see (6:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 5 Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz Alomari, Logan Airport Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11 (6:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Ziad Jarrah Makes Final Phone Call to Girlfriend in Germany About an hour before boarding Flight 93, Ziad Jarrah phones his girlfriend, Aysel Senguen, who is currently recovering from a minor operation in a hospital in Germany, where she lives. ANGELES TIMES, 10/23/2001; OBSERVER, 8/22/2004 Senguen will later recount, “He was very brief. He said he loved me three times. I asked what was up. He hung up shortly afterwards.… It was so short and rather strange him saying that repeatedly.” 11/19/2002; GUARDIAN, 11/20/2002 Some accounts say Jarrah makes this call from his hotel, the Days Inn in Newark. Other accounts claim he makes it from a payphone at the airport, although he does not actually check in there until later on, at 7:39 a.m. 1/17/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 532; OBSERVER, 8/22/2004; SUNDAY HERALD (GLASGOW), 8/22/2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 35 Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Aysel Senguen Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight UA 93, Ziad Jarrah (6:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Hijackers Cause Trouble at Logan Airport; Have Flight Training Manuals in Car Flight 11 hijackers Waleed Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, and Satam Al Suqami arrive at Boston’s Logan Airport in a rental car, which they park in the airport’s central parking lot. COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 5 According to the News of the World, a man who arrives at Logan at “about 6:30 a.m.” for an early flight, has an argument with several Middle Eastern men over a parking space, before moving on. Some early press reports say his confrontation is with five men. TELEGRAPH, 9/13/2001; ABC NEWS, 9/14/2001; NEWS OF THE WORLD, 9/16/2001 However, the 9/11 Commission will later describe the incident differently. It says there are just three Middle Eastern men, and the man ends up parked next to them. One of them opens his car door to get out then spends time “fiddling with his things,” thus trapping the man in his car. Eventually he has to force his way out, but the Middle Eastern men are completely unresponsive to him, saying nothing. The man will report the incident to authorities after hearing of the attacks. However, whether he identifies the men as Flight 11 hijackers is unstated. The hijackers’ car, which is associated with either Wail or Waleed Alshehri, will be found in the lot later in the day of 9/11. COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 85 Inside the car, a Mitsubishi sedan rented from National Rental Car, are found Arabic-language flight training manuals. PRESS, 9/12/2001; BOSTON HERALD, 9/12/2001; DAILY TELEGRAPH, 9/13/2001 Entity Tags: Wail Alshehri, Waleed M. Alshehri, Satam Al Suqami, Logan Airport Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events (6:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Israeli Company Given Two Hours’ Notice of Attack “Approximately two hours prior to the first attack,” at least two workers at Odigo, an Israeli-owned instant messaging company, receive messages warning of the attack. Odigo’s US headquarters are located two blocks from the WTC. The source of the warning is unknown. 9/26/2001; WASHINGTON POST, 9/28/2001 Entity Tags: Odigo Inc., World Trade Center Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, World Trade Center (6:45 a.m.-7:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Three Flight 11 Hijackers Selected for Additional Screening When They Pass through Airport Security During this period, all five Flight 11 hijackers check in at Boston’s Logan Airport and board their plane, bound for Los Angeles. The FAA has a program in place called the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS), which is designed to identify those passengers most likely requiring additional scrutiny by airport security (see (6:20 a.m.-7:48 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Ticket records will show that CAPPS selects three of the Flight 11 hijackers at Logan: Since Waleed Alshehri checks no bags his selection has no consequences; Wail Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami have their bags scanned for explosives, but are not stopped. All five hijackers would need to pass through a security checkpoint to reach the departure gate for their flight. Each would have been screened as they walked through a metal detector calibrated to detect items with at least the metal content of a small-caliber handgun. If they’d set this off, they would have been screened with a handheld metal detector. An X-ray machine would have screened their carry-on luggage. However, Logan Airport has no video surveillance of its security checkpoints (see 1991-2000), so there is no documentary evidence of exactly when they pass through them, or if alarms are triggered. According to the 9/11 Commission, none of the checkpoint supervisors later recall seeing any of the Flights 11 hijackers, or report anything suspicious having occurred. COMMISSION, 1/27/2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 1-2; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 5-6 However, a WorldNetDaily article will claim that some Logan staff members recall seeing Mohamed Atta (see (6:50 a.m.-7:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001). 9/21/2001 The Boston Globe will later comment, “aviation specialists have said it is unlikely that more rigorous attention to existing rules would have thwarted the 10 hijackers who boarded two jets at Logan on Sept. 11. At the time, the knives and box-cutters they were carrying were permitted.” GLOBE, 10/17/2001 Entity Tags: Satam Al Suqami, Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, Wail Alshehri, Federal Aviation Administration, Logan Airport, Waleed M. Alshehri Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11 6:47 a.m. September 11, 2001: WTC Building 7 Alarm Not Operating According to later reports, the alarm system in WTC 7 is placed on “TEST” status for a period due to last eight hours. This ordinarily happens during maintenance or other testing, and any alarms received from the building are generally ignored. INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY, 6/2004, PP. 28 Entity Tags: World Trade Center Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, WTC Investigation, World Trade Center (6:50 a.m.-7:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Mohamed Atta Observed at Logan Airport Running Late for Plane? According to an article on the conservative news website WorldNetDaily, alleged lead hijacker Mohamed Atta almost misses Flight 11 and has to rush to the departure gate at Boston’s Logan Airport. The article is based on the account of an unnamed American Airlines employee at Logan, and claims Atta is running late because his connecting flight from Portland was delayed (see (6:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). However, the 9/11 Commission claims that this plane was “on time,” and says Atta is observed at Logan with Abdulaziz Alomari, asking for directions in a parking lot (see 6:45 a.m. September 11, 2001). The employee says that at the baggage check-in, when asked security questions, Atta claims he does not speak English. A supervisor is called for, who just sends him towards the departure gate, as it is close to his plane’s take-off time. Atta rushes through the security checkpoint, then down to the gate, where he shows up perspiring. The employee comments, “The nitwit. You know, they’d been planning it for five years, and he’s running late for the flight.” An American Airlines spokeswoman will refuse to comment on this account, saying all American employees have been ordered not to speak to the press. 9/21/2001; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 3, 5 Entity Tags: Logan Airport, Mohamed Atta Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11 6:52 a.m.-6:55 a.m. September 11, 2001: Call Placed from Payphone at Logan to Atta’s Cell Phone A three-minute call is made from a payphone at Boston’s Logan Airport, in the gate area from where Flight 175 will later depart, to Mohamed Atta’s cell phone. The 9/11 Commission will report, “We presume Shehhi Marwan Alshehhi made the call, but we cannot be sure.” According to the commission, this is Atta and Alshehhi’s final conversation. COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 1, 451; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 4 According to other reports, though, they later speak again briefly by cellphone while waiting for their planes to take off (see (Before 7:59 a.m.) September 11, 2001). YORK TIMES, 11/4/2001; TIME, 8/4/2002 Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Logan Airport Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 175